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CULTURE-MALAWI: Property Grabbing Impoverishes Widows
By Brian Ligomeka
BLANTYRE, Oct 8, 2003 (IPS) - The death of 48-year-old school teacher, Juma
Matemba, of a heart attack, would have been just another loss in Malawi.
But it is not.
Before the deceased's body was fetched from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in
Blantrye, the commercial capital of Malawi, for burial in his village, his
relatives invaded his house, sharing all the property that he had
accumulated during his lifetime.
During the raid, his widow and children just shed tears as they witnessed
the disappearance of their property.
Ngeyi Kanyongolo, a University of Malawi law lecturer, says "one of the
commonest problems relating to infringement of human rights in relation to
deceased estates, which directly affects widows, can be called 'property
grabbing'."
Kanyongolo, who is also the chairperson of the Blantyre-based Women
Lawyers Association of Malawi, defines property grabbing as a practice
whereby a widow is forcibly disposed of all the deceased property whatsoever
or a larger part thereof, by relatives of the husband during sickness,
funeral ceremony or immediately thereafter.
Centre for Advice, Research and Education on Rights, a non-governmental
organisation, says over 50 percent of legal and human rights-related cases
it handles are issues about deceased estates.
Vera Chirwa, Executive Director for Women's Voice, says property grabbing
is now a common practice in both rural and urban Malawi.
She says section 24 of Malawi's constitution recognises the rights of
women and puts them as a special category apart from other rights.
"Section 24(2) (C) protects women from being deprived of their property
including property obtained by inheritance," she points out.
"The constitutional provision extends to invalidating any law and
elimination of customary practices that discriminate women on marital
status," says Chirwa.
Women become victims of property grabbing because most of them are not
aware of the provisions of the Wills and Inheritance Act, she says.
The act stipulates that ". all household property used by the widow
before the death will automatically go to her. Secondly, the remaining
property will be distributed between the widow, her children and all his
direct dependants on one hand and their heirs as recognised by customary
law".
"Thirdly where the marriage was matrilineal, the widow's children and
direct dependants will get two-fifth of the property while customary heirs
will get a fifth. If marriage was patrilineal the distribution between these
two is 50-50."
Rights lawyers and campaigners describe some of the outdated customary
practices as the root causes of property-grabbing in Malawi. Rights
campaigner, Mazengera says many property grabbers hide under customary law.
"One of the practices which some grabbers exploit is 'kusudzula'. Under
this custom, a widow is expected, after her husband's death, to be cleansed
and then divorced. In most cases, the widow is sent back to her village with
only a handful of property or no property at all," says Mazengera.
Lobola (dowry), another customary practice, according to Kanyongolo, also
seriously infringes on women's rights. Under this practice, once a man has
paid lobola he literally owns the wife and children. In case of death, all
that the man owned, including his wife and children, are supposed to belong
to the family of the deceased.
"It is pathetic that when a wife tries to protest she is often
dispossessed of everything, including her children, leaving her helpless and
miserable," laments Kanyongolo.
Emmie Chanika, Executive Director for Civil Liberties Committee in
Malawi, attributes the problem to poverty and greed. "Poverty is one of the
major causes of property-grabbing. In most cases parents and relatives of
the deceased argue that their son was their investment and, therefore,
cannot let go of the property he has left behind. As for the wife, she is
just cast aside," says Chanika.
Around 55 percent of Malawi's population of 11 million lives below the
poverty line of one U.S. dollar a day, according to the World Bank.
Seodi White, executive director of the Malawi Chapter of the Women in Law
in Southern Africa, says property grabbers get away because the law is not
strong enough.
"The problem is that there are no punitive sanctions to punish those who
dispossess widows and children of deceased estates," she says.
White calls upon law enforcement agents to help widows and children from
property grabbers.
Another problem facing widows is bureaucracy. "My husband passed away a
year ago. Almost every month, I travel to my husband's district to check
whether the estate is ready for distribution. Frankly speaking, I am tired
of being always told to 'check next month'," laments Maseko from southern
Malawi.
Dereck Chimombo, who lost his father two years ago, also complains of
bureaucratic delays. "Some people have been victims of loss of files and
subsequent loss of benefits to intended beneficiaries," says 22-year-old
Chimombo.
Some widows also have complained of corruption by the very officials that
are supposed to assist them.
Sometimes the officials ask for bribes to process benefits, the job they
are paid to do.
As campaigners debate the plight of widows, the wife of the late Matemba,
the school teacher, like the majority of widows in Malawi, continues to
suffer from deprivation of her property. (END)
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